Planning for a mosque

By Jo Printz

The City of Greater Bendigo council recently approved the development of a mosque, the first in the city's history. Despite hundreds of submissions against the application, approval was given because the building meets all the planning requisites.

In the City of Greater Bendigo agenda, the application read as "construction of a two storey building for use as a place of assembly/worship (mosque) and ancillary uses, caretaker's residence and a sports hall, and removal of native vegetation."

The city's planning department had been dealing with the application for months ahead of the decision - working through the proposal, hearing objections and consulting with some of the objectors, making a few alterations and finally, recommending that councillors appove the application.

Which the majority of councillors did, despite a very vocal public presence at the council meeting on June 18.

In the days following, anti-Islamic rhetoric against and counter pro-multiculturalism support for the mosque has drowned out the objections made by local residents on purely planning considerations, such as traffic and parking issues, noise and the height of the mosque's minaret.

Planning and Development Director with the City of Greater Bendigo, Prue Mansfield, sat down with ABC Central Victoria's morning program presenter Fiona Parker to go through the planning issues around the development and how the department dealt with those objections made on planning grounds.